head to head · open source
osv-scanner vs cve
osv-scanner has 11,080 GitHub stars, 797 forks, 113 open issues and last shipped yesterday. cve has 8,087 stars, 977 forks, 21 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. osv-scanner leads on adoption by 37% (11,080 vs 8,087 stars). osv-scanner is written in Go under Apache-2.0; cve is written in HTML under MIT. osv-scanner has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, cve 12%. osv-scanner was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (security-tools), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| osv-scanner | cve | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 11K | ★ 8.1K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | HTML |
| Last push | 2026-09-24 | 2026-09-23 |
| Forks | ⑂ 797 | ⑂ 977 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick osv-scanner if
- You weight community size — 11K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick cve if
- You want the cve feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches HTML
- You evaluated both and cve fits your workflow better
About osv-scanner
OSV Scanner is an Apache 2.0 licensed vulnerability scanner written in Go that connects a project's list of dependencies with the vulnerabilities affecting them, using data from the open OSV.dev database, and it is aimed at developers, maintainers, and security teams who need to find known vulnerabilities in the dependencies they already ship.
read the full osv-scanner overview →
About cve
cve is an automatically generated, MIT licensed repository from Trickest that gathers almost every publicly available CVE Proof of Concept and publishes it as browsable markdown files, made for penetration testers, red teams and vulnerability researchers who need to find public exploits for a given identifier.
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Frequently asked questions
Is osv-scanner or cve more popular?
osv-scanner has 11,080 GitHub stars and cve has 8,087. osv-scanner has the larger community by that measure.
Are osv-scanner and cve free?
Both are open source. osv-scanner is licensed under Apache-2.0 and cve under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between osv-scanner and cve?
osv-scanner is written in Go and cve in HTML. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, osv-scanner or cve?
Choose osv-scanner if you want the larger community (11,080 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose cve if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.